


Shotgun

by outlier



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27358618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outlier/pseuds/outlier
Summary: They gave Maria a box too small to hold the life it represented. Or, Maria and Monica in the aftermath of Carol's death (and undeath).
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau
Comments: 8
Kudos: 100
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2020





	Shotgun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wiccy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiccy/gifts).



> Monica's parentage is complete head-canon.

They gave her a box. It rattled, nowhere close to full, and smelled like jet fuel and ozone. They gave it to her with a small, embarrassed look of concern, and she carried it back to her house just off base and tucked it away in the closet, on the highest shelf. They didn’t give her instructions for how to tell her daughter about death, or what it meant for someone to be gone forever. No one fed her the kinds of words that could be taken in by a tiny, growing brain, or told her what to do when a tiny body shook with sobs, overwhelmed by a couldn’t-be-truth that Carol wasn’t ever going to come home.

The funeral was small. Like the people who had given her the box, it was embarrassed. It couldn’t say why it was being held or why there was no body or what had happened to the life force that was now missing. Carol had been apathetically religious and never maudlin enough to talk about final wishes, and Maria had certainly not expected to have to plan a funeral. She fell back on the rhythms of her own childhood. She let the funeral home call a preacher and avoided the sideways glances from vaguely predatory men in suits, who sniffed at death’s door with collection plates in hand. She ignored softly spoken questions like “Wouldn’t she have liked…” and awkwardly phrased requests that were really ‘Why are you here, arranging the funeral of this blonde-haired, blue-eyed fallen warrior’ that lingered on her dark skin and skirted her dark eyes. She hugged her daughter close, because there was no one to keep her, no one she trusted to keep her, not with Carol’s death a stone weighing down everything.

Her parents flew in from Louisiana, and she let herself be wrapped up. She buried her face in the fabric of her mother’s dress and smelled home, dulled by travel and sweat. She let herself cry in front of someone else for the first time, and not hidden away in a room, avoiding a bed she couldn’t sleep in anymore. Her father took Monica and swung her up on his hip and kissed the top of her head and her mother patted her back, and finally, someone knew what Maria had lost.

“It’s time for you to come home, baby,” her mother said, wiping at Maria’s tears with dove soft fingers, like she knew Maria had lost her anchor. As if she knew she needed to tie her down somewhere, at least for a little while, until Maria could grow roots again. So she wouldn’t float away in spirit if not in body, because all she had was an almost empty box, the contents of a locker she’d known the combination to by heart, a lifetime of photos, and a little girl with big sad eyes who didn’t understand yet, but would.

The plan had been to re-up. The plan had been to retire from the Air Force with a chest full of medals, with Avenger and Photon as living legends and pioneers. The plan had been 20 years and maybe a little more, and life would surely have changed by then. No one would care in 20 years. They couldn’t, not that far in the future. They’d share a cake at their retirement party, hold hands. She’d wrap her arm around Carol’s waist and Monica would take pictures, and after, they’d go out for a family dinner. A nice one, and maybe she and Carol would wear their uniforms one last time, or maybe they’d be so tired of them by then that the thought of climbing into them again made them sick. Maybe she’d have a few strands of gray in her hair. She liked to think she’d never have to dye her hair – look at her Momma, with hair as dark as night – but her Momma hadn’t bothered with hiding her trips to the beauty parlor. So maybe there’d be a few strands of gray, and Carol would smile her crinkled-eye smile at them and call her beautiful, and she wouldn’t mind so much.

They’d watch Monica graduate kindergarten together. They’d watch her graduate middle school, then high school, and she’d go off to college and they’d mope around the house together, talking about how quiet and empty it felt. Carol had always poked fun. She’d said they’d move to Louisiana and fly crop dusters together, low and fast and with unnecessary but absolutely badass barrel rolls that made metal and bolts creak. They’d get away with it because you could be a little eccentric in the South, Carol would say, and Maria had always shaken her head and wondered how she could be so in love with someone who didn’t understand the realities of the place where she’d been born, but maybe that was okay, too. And maybe by then, no one would have cared. Maybe they could have moved into a house together, put their names on the mailbox, and sat on the front porch in the evenings, lazy and halfway to growing old together.

After the funeral, there’d been no place to go. There’d been no need for a grave-side service, no need for all of them to stand around and look at a patch of grass that would never protect a body. Her mother had squeezed her hand and they’d gone back to the apartment and she’d looked in her closet at racks of clothes she wasn’t sure she could ever give away. Everything about her was a box, nearly empty, with the few pieces left rattling against the bottom. The preacher had talked about a promised land, about the promise of finding our loved ones again in Heaven, and about the meaning behind seemingly meaningless things. She had a daughter to raise first. She couldn’t think about the sandy shores of some mythical promised land, and Carol waiting there with her crooked smile, some smartass something on her lips.

The day after the service, she pulled her re-enlistment paperwork and sent Monica home with her parents. She followed six weeks later, with an honorable discharge and a truck full of boxes. The one she’d been handed rode on the seat beside her. Home felt tight, like a skin she’d grown out of, like a glove just a little too small, wrapping her up in its grip, but it wasn’t the emptiness of a once shared apartment and it wasn’t bumping up against a grave that would never be filled. It would never be right – nothing would, ever again – but it’d do.

XXXXXXXXXX

“When’s Auntie Carol coming home?” Monica asked. She was at the door in a too long tee-shirt, one of Carol’s, her arm tight around the neck of the teddy bear she’d gotten the Christmas before. Her feet hissed against the battered hardwood as she inched into the room, barely visible backlit by the nightlight in the hallway.

“Come here, sweetheart.” Maria lifted up the soft quilt, ragged from years of use. If she wasn’t careful, her toe would catch on the place that’d been worn thin, snagging and deepening the hole there and revealing more of the batting beneath. It’d been hers since she was Monica’s age, when it still had the stiff sheen of something newly sewn. Like a lot of things, it’d somehow gotten left behind when she signed up, in that chasm between her old life and her new. Now that she was back, that old life had wrapped itself around her in a way that was either too tight or reassuringly comforting depending on the day.

With the lack of concern for personal space that blessed all children, Monica settled in with her head on Maria’s arm, her face only inches away. There was a hint of something sweet on her breath, a treat snuck after dinner, and Maria couldn’t remember if she’d provided a reminder to brush her teeth. She’d always been the scowling presence behind those kinds of things. Carol was the one who swept in with a grin and a _Captain Trouble_ , and Monica would giggle and match Carol’s movements in the mirror as they went through their nighttime routine.

 _Spit_ , she remembered hearing, repeated seconds later in a high-pitched, childish cant. _Spit_. There’d been giggles, child and adult, and two gleaming smiles presented for inspection. With Monica in bed, Maria would kiss the taste of mint off Carol’s lips, following after her when Carol pulled back with that look in her eyes that invited the chase.

“It’s going to be alright,” she murmured into Monica’s curls, not sure she meant it. But Monica’s breath evened out, no longer jerky and wet, and the tears that had soaked into the cotton of Maria’s nightgown dried slowly under the lazy sweep of the ceiling fan.

Nights were cruel. She’d never slept in this bed with Carol, or under this ceiling, or in this quiet house out in the Louisiana countryside. None of that seemed to matter, at least not to her mind. Her mind spooled up memories as Monica’s soft breath puffed against her shoulder. Time slowed down. She let it, and suddenly Carol’s hand was on her belly, eyes luminous in the dark, telling her it was okay that this had to stay a secret. It was okay that the baby – still little more than an idea at that point – would call her Aunt Carol, not Mom. They’d explain later, when the baby was old enough to understand and to not have the sort of slip up in public that might lead to the Air Force knocking on their door, discharge papers in hand. It didn’t matter what she was called, just that Maria wanted her to be a part of this. And then her hand would slide down, under Maria’s cotton sleep shorts, and Maria wouldn’t have to see it to know the edge to Carol’s smile.

They didn’t talk about how it happened, about the month Maria spent in Miramar on temporary assignment, and the boot with blond hair and blue eyes she met one night at a bar. They didn’t talk about how she’d been lonely and in denial, all wrapped up in fear, with that internal voice speaking in the timbre of her childhood pastor, thumping up against her skull with each silent _It’s wrong_. Maria didn’t know the boot’s name, didn’t remember if she ever got it, and was sad about that, because he deserved to know. She did remember he was stubborn and cocky, with a confidence that teased with its familiarity. She remembered the morning after, nursing a headache and a heartache, ashamed of herself not because of what she’d done, but because she’d spent so much time and effort being afraid. She was better than fear, she’d told the face in the mirror the morning after, ignoring her bloodshot eyes and the stubble burn on her chin. What could be scary about love to a woman who’d left her small home town to join an Air Force that had wanted to put her behind a desk, secretary to a man who was allowed to strive and achieve where she was supposed to know her place, and who’d worked her way to the top one clawing handful at a time?

She’d expected anger at her confession – love hidden, betrayal fresh, fear for so long – but Carol had shaken her head and laughed, indulgent.

“Why do you think I give you a head start when we race?” Carol had said, eyes twinkling, a little sad, maybe, in a way that was overwhelmed with relief. “I’m used to waiting for you to catch up.”

“You’re lucky I love you,” she’d said, gruff, unable to be mad when Carol was grinning at her like it was the kind of inside joke they told at their fiftieth anniversary party. _Remember when you thought you could pretend you didn’t love me_ , Carol of the future would say, and arch a brow and shake her head as if it was the most nonsensical thing she’d ever heard.

Carol of the past had pulled her in close with more swagger than she had any right to, the way she did with everything. She’d ignored the way Maria had stiffened, not yet used to letting herself have this, and stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss Maria as casually as if they’d been doing it for years. “Yeah, I know,” she’d said, and Maria of the past had put her fingers to her lips, still feeling how soft it’d all been.

Maria of the present did the same to the phantom kiss of her memories and pressed her face into Monica’s hair.

XXXXXXXXXX

Monica said _Auntie Carol_. She said _Auntie Carol_ and jumped out of the helicopter Maria had been working on and ran over to a dead woman, like Carol hadn’t been gone for six years. Like this stranger who looked at Maria as if they’d never met was – could ever be – her Carol. Yet she was, stiff and uncertain in some ways but just as sure of herself as she’d ever been in others. Maria had dreamed about what it would be like to see Carol again. She hadn’t expected hands that wouldn’t stop shaking and her brain dumping every single chemical it had in it all at once, leaving her exhausted and wired and on edge all at once. She hadn’t expected it to feel like she’d become detached from reality, like she was watching someone else watch the woman standing in her kitchen and telling stories about aliens and spaceships and superpowers.

This Carol-who-was-and-was-not-her-Carol didn’t seem to notice the implications of the boxes of memories Monica pulled out, all excited chatter and spilt secrets. Mom wouldn’t let me wear your jacket anymore after I got ketchup on it was a truth marked _I have kept this part of you, venerated it, made it sacred, clung to the woman who had worn it without knowing it would one day be one of the last surviving pieces of her._ Pictures of Carol and Monica dressed up for Halloween – and Monica would tell her all about what that was, don’t worry – were _this was the family we had built together, and now I keep the reminders of it hidden away in this box because it hurts to see what I’ve lost._

She wondered if this was what ghosts felt like, watching life carry on without them as the memory of the life they’d had faded away. Carol didn’t remember her, didn’t remember them, but she sat in a chair in Maria’s kitchen like she fit. She was Monica’s hero again. She still needed Maria to be _her_ hero, to have the belief in her that Carol usually had in herself. It somehow made sense that her house with filled with aliens, a rogue government agent, and _Carol_ , more sense than the idea that Carol had died and left her behind. Of course Carol hadn’t died. How could she, someone filled with that much life?

It hurt, that this was something like what they could have had – Carol and Monica both looking at her with pleading eyes, in cahoots, and her giving in under their combined might. Only it wasn’t a pair of hooligans pressing for a late bedtime. It was a soldier on a mission and a little girl caught up in the excitement and adventure of it all, and she wasn’t settling in under a blanket on the couch to watch a late-night movie with her family. She was climbing back into the cockpit, an airwoman in a fight bigger than she could understand. But the look on Carol’s face, that unblinking confidence in a comrade, and the way Monica’s eyes shined with a little hero worship for her, too, gave her back something she had forgotten she was missing.

That little sting of life returned stayed with her after the day was won. Her hands itched to feel the joystick in her hands again, knowing she was part of something _bigger_. It brought a little guilt with it, because it felt like a betrayal to think that there’d been something missing when she had Monica and her parents and a life of relative plenty. It ought to be enough. It would have been, if she hadn’t been reminded.

“Hey.” The voices of the aliens and humans gathered around her dining room table swelled and ebbed as Carol stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. Maria hadn’t turned on the porch light, needing a moment away from all that noise in a life that had gotten used to quiet, but even without it, Carol seemed to glow. “Nice flying out there today.”

Maria wondered if this was what it felt like when exes bumped into one another, this struggle to make small talk with the weight of history bearing down. Then again, she couldn’t even lay claim to that, not with a lost love who didn’t even remember what had been lost.

“Yeah, well, you too.”

Carol shrugged, as if rocketing through the sky under her own power was on par with winning the 100-yard dash at the spring picnic, a small talent undeserving of notice. Maria wanted to kiss her so badly she burned with it.

“Fury needs that kind of talent on his team.” Carol grinned at her. The moon reflected off the whites of her eyes and the edge of her teeth, making her a recruitment advertisement in a Heart tee-shirt unearthed from Maria’s stash of memories.

“I said I’d think about it.”

For a moment, Carol seemed to falter. Her eyes cut to the side and she shook her head, like she was responding to a conversation only she could hear. Maria hadn’t meant the sharp edge to the words, but it hurt more than she was prepared for, Carol here in front of her on her shadowed porch.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get my memories back,” Carol said, with that same tremor in her voice that she’d had after learning the truth about the lie of her life on Hala. “I feel like I had a life here I wouldn’t have wanted to leave. I feel like you were probably a big part of that life.”

Maria took in a sharp breath. It hurt, the way cold morning air could burn the lungs.

“I feel like I’ll regret it if I don’t do this.”

And then Carol was in front of her, with that determined look she’d always gotten when she’d convinced herself the reward was worth the risk. Her lips were as soft as Maria had remembered. It was the kind of kiss she could have extracted herself from easily if she’d wanted, the kind of bravery that gave instead of overpowered. She could have left it at that, but Maria knew what it was like wake up one day with no more chances left. So she stepped into the kiss, deepened it, with her fists wrapped in the soft cotton of Carol’s tee.

“I’ll be back,” Carol whispered when they parted. Maria was glad for the dark; it hid the way the tears she was trying to blink back had managed to break free anyway. “I have to fix this, for Talos and his people. I have to make it right. But after, I’m coming back. I’m coming back to you and Monica, and I’m going to remember.”

Maria thought back to a mostly empty box tucked away on a high shelf. “You can’t promise that. I don’t want to hold onto promises you have no way of knowing you can keep.”

She wasn’t sure she could survive the hope.

“I can promise to try.” Carol had that look in her eye that Maria knew almost too well, determination and unbounded confidence and a belief that she could somehow just strong-arm the world to bend itself to her will. She would have assumed this was what came with surviving certain death if she hadn’t known better. This was Carol refusing to let herself be beaten, and Maria wished it didn’t set her on fire.

“Don’t expect me to wait forever,” Maria said, knowing that she would.

She kissed Carol again, before she could make any more promises, walking her back until the shadows swallowed them whole.

XXXXXXXXXX

Maria squinted up into the early afternoon sunshine as she heard the distant growl of an engine. Her mechanic’s ear turned to the tuning of it. It was rich and deep, showy because it didn’t have any other way to be, and Maria grinned. Some high school kid showing off, probably, in a car that would get the best of them before they knew it. A V-8 at full throttle, if she had to guess.

She was only the tiniest bit jealous.

A short spring had given way to the heat of summer. She peeled out of the top of her coveralls, knotting the arms around her waist. The slight breeze felt good against her bare shoulders and provided a scant minute’s respite from the heat. She decided to make it a full break, and stepped into the cool of the house to grab a Coke from the fridge.

The storm door creaked as she stepped back onto the porch. She was vaguely aware of the way it had slammed shut behind her, but most of her attention was on the gathering trail of dust kicking up behind a growing dot of deep blue. The half empty glass bottle of Coke was heavy in her hand as she descended the stairs, reaching the ground just as the car turned into her driveway in a squeal of tires. Rocks clinked against the undercarriage as it came screaming up the drive. A Mustang Cobra, she noted. Early 90s body style. Hatchback. Ridiculously impractical.

Excitement tickled at the back of her neck as the door cracked open. Carol stepped out, aviators on and smile wide, in a faded Poison tee shirt and a pair of worn denim jeans.

“Looking good,” Carol said, sliding her sunglasses down her nose and taking Maria in from head to foot. “Can I take you for a ride?”

For a moment, Maria just looked. She took in a handful of the myriad of her favorite Carol things – her grin, the default to challenge in the set of her shoulders, the way she leaned back against the car’s door, nervous under her sly, confident façade.

Maria closed the gap between them in a handful of sure, purposeful steps. She pressed forward until Carol was looking up at her with eyes softened by affection and nerves.

“You’ve got shotgun,” she said, plucking the keys from Carol’s hand. And then she leaned down and kissed her, her other hand braced against sun hot metal, uncaring under the clear gaze of the wide-open sky.


End file.
